Category: Photography

Categories
Graphics/CSS Photography

Gimp 2.6 alive and well on the Mac

GIMP 2.6 is now available on the Mac OS X, in addition to both Windows and Linux. On the Mac, you can install it via Macports, or you can use a pre-built version of the application, available for both Tiger and Leopard. I have the Macports version on my Leopard machine, the pre-built on my Tiger laptop.

First impressions of the newest version is that I like the improvements to the user interface. The original application (Toolbox) toolbar has now been merged as part of the image window, simplifying the interface. The application is still a MDI, or Multiple Document Interface, but it’s simple to keep all of the tool’s components visible.

The necessary photo enhancement tools are all present and accounted for, including Layers, Curves, and the all important Gaussian blur, as well as several of the other handy enhancing tools. The application still interfaces with UFRaw, the separately accessible open source tool that provides RAW image pre-processing.

One of the new additions to Adobe’s Photoshop CS4, I gather, is the addition of seam carving whereby the tool can determine where pixels can be compressed and still maintain most of the image’s integral look. GIMP 2.6 also incorporates a plug-in known as Liquid Rescale that is based on the same algorithm. I didn’t have a photo with a long, unending beach, but I did have a photo of a bright red mumdahlia. Following are two versions of the photo, a before and after scaling with Liquid Rescale.

Red Mum before

Red Mum after

The red flower is distorted, which isn’t surprising. However, the bud, leaves, and even some of the background are relatively untouched. Interesting effect. The plug-in’s web site has examples that show how to use Liquid Rescaling to enhance photos without obvious distortions.

Another major change with GIMP 2.6 is the addition of the GEGL (Generic Graphics Library). From the GIMP 2.6 release notes:

Important progress towards high bit-depth and non-destructive editing in GIMP has been made. Most color operations in GIMP are now ported to the powerful graph based image processing framework GEGL, meaning that the interal processing is being done in 32bit floating point linear light RGBA. By default the legacy 8bit code paths are still used, but a curious user can turn on the use of GEGL for the color operations with Colors / Use GEGL.

There’s also a GEGL tool, which provides access to several operations, though I’d use caution when applying any of the operations to a large, RAW image. Among the more familiar of the operations is an unsharp-mask; among some of the more interesting is the whitebalance operation, demonstrated in the following snapshot.

The new modifications for GIMP 2.6 go beyond making our photos prettier. The new Brush Dynamics feature is a kick to play with, and one can see how it would be useful when creating specialized effects. With the Dynamics, I can create a wonderfully fun fairy sparkle effect, just by setting the pressure, velocity, and random settings for the brush opacity, hardness, size, and color.

Some of the more popular plug-ins, such as the Layers plug-in, which emulates the Photoshop layer effects capability still have not been ported to 2.6. Most of the effects, however, can be created by scratch until the plug-ins are updated. Plus, there’s enough to the basic tool, including the new GEGL operations, and the Brush Dynamics to keep one occupied for hours.

GIMP isn’t the tool for everyone. If you’re proficient with Adobe Photoshop, work in an operating system in which Photoshop is released, and can afford the rather expensive upgrades, you should stay with Photoshop. However, with today’s troubled economic times, and an increased interest in being frugal, you can’t beat GIMP 2.6’s price: donate what you can to the project. In addition, the new Photoshop CS won’t run on many older Mac architectures, including both my Leopard and Tiger laptops.

Paired with UFRaw, you have what you need to do sophisticated photo processing with GIMP. And with all of the graphics plug-ins, filters, scripts, and so on, you can do most other graphics work with the tool, as I hope to demonstrate more fully in the future.

Categories
Photography

Solar Imagery

Thanks to Jesse Robbins at O’Reilly for pointing out the exquisite collection of solar images that the Boston Globe has compiled.

Solar flare

Categories
Burningbird Photography Political

End of politico beginning of computer fund

Today I went to the gas station to fill up my tank before this week’s rapid rise in gas prices. The station has two islands, with three filling areas on each side. I drove through the center, between the two islands, which has room to pass even if cars are at both sides. However, I was forced to stop before getting to the pump because an elderly man was using the window squeegee thing to clean the inside of his windows and had his door wide open so I couldn’t pass.

I stopped, thinking that he would see I was trying to get past and close his door, but he just continued his painfully slow process of trying to use the squeegee thingie to clean his inside windows.

I was already cranky entering the station, and snarled at him to please close his door, as I was trying to get past— startling him a little, which left me feeling like a jerk because my parents did not raise me to be rude to somebody in their 80s. I had let my cranky feelings overcome both my manners, and my sense of perspective, because I was in no hurry and could have waited a couple of minutes for him to finish.

I’m cranky from the news, not only of the election but the abysmal bail out, which, no, I don’t approve of in any shape or form. However, the stress of both is actually adding to a sense of physical degradation, as well as impacting on both my humor and my interactions with those around me. I snarled at an elderly man, and I’ve never snarled at an elderly person before. I wasn’t raised this way. Snarl at webloggers, yes; but never the elderly, the very young, or critters. That’s just plain mean.

You’ll be glad to know that this is my last post on the election, because I am going to be restricting my intake of news and politics, and especially economics. I can’t do a thing to make a difference, and keeping up with the stories is, frankly, ruining what is potentially going to be a beautiful fall.

I had planned on writing a long, seemingly learned paper on the election, listing out various topics and how Obama and McCain differ, but there’s a lot of people who do a much better job at this than me. I’m voting for Obama/Biden, plain and simple. To do otherwise will turn the White House over to two people who are incompetent to lead, at a time when this country is in a world of hurt, and needs the best, not the worst.

There. I did my thing, and I’m sure have convinced hundreds, thousands of you to vote for Obama.

Now, writing about the internet, browsers, standards—including and RDF and SVG, and the like—is useful because I may actually make a difference talking about these topics. Same with my tales of Missouri at MissouriGreen, video at Secret of Signals, and whatever at Just Shelley. Even if all I do is post pictures of our zoo’s new Amur leopard cub, Sophie, who stole my heart this weekend, forever, when she “stalked” my roommate as he walked around her habitat trying to see her.

Amur leopard cub

Yes, I have given my heart to a leopard cub. Sorry to my male readers who might be disappointed. Come to that, sorry to my female readers who might be disappointed.

Hopefully pictures of this sweet thing will make up for the fact that I’ve been a dead bore, lately.

Sophie, stalking roommate
Sophie, still stalking

update: Decided against trying to run a computer fund.

Categories
Critters Photography

Not just butterflies

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

My last trip to the Botanical didn’t just result in some butterfly photos. I was also able to grab some photos of birds, including a rather proud looking goldfinch.

male goldfinch

Our bright fellow wasn’t by himself, though. This female goldfinch, with more subtle coloring, was busy either trying to hack loose a leaf, or sharpening her bill.

female goldfinch

Categories
Critters Photography

First Monarchs

I spotted my first monarchs this week, and managed to get a couple of photos of them and some of their friends at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

Monarch butterfly:

Monarch

Monarch

I was finally able to capture an image of a Cabbage White. Though they are common, they’re difficult to photograph because they move about more than most of the other butterflies. They’re also a very aggressive butterfly, chasing away other types of butterflies and, on a couple of occasions, small birds.

Cabbage White

The following dainty beauty is most likely a male Clouded Sulphur :

Clouded Sulphur

There’s always room for one more Painted Lady photo:

Painted Lady

At first I thought this butterfly was a male Taxiles Skipper, but the Butterflies and Moths of North America guide say that this species has never been spotted in Missouri. Running through all of the Skipper photos, I then found the Fiery Skipper, which is known to be in Missouri. The two are very similar, at least to someone new to butterfly identification.

Taxiles Skipper?